Millbrook’s 4th Line Theatre has announced two original productions will premiere during the outdoor theatre company’s 32nd summer season in 2024: Onion Skins & Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes and Jim Watts: Girl Reporter.
“In our 2024 season, I am proud to share these two plays with audiences,” says 4th Line Theatre managing artistic director Kim Blackwell in a media release. “These world premiere productions have been developed through our new play development program.”
The 2024 season will also see the return of longtime musical director Justin Hiscox, whose involvement in 4th Line Theatre’s 2023 season was cut short when he faced a life-threatening infection. On the road to recovery, Hiscox will be composing original music and providing musical direction for the 2024 season.
Written by Alison Lawrence based on the book by Shirleyan English and Bonnie Sitter, Onion Skins & Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes is described as a funny and enlightening exploration of the largely unknown true story of the role of teenage girls during World War II. When farms were short of labourers, thousands of young women — most with no previous farming experience — worked on Ontario farms to keep people fed while young men were overseas fighting.
“These ‘Farmerettes’, all in their 90s now, tell us that the summers they worked those farms were the best of their lives, even 70 or more years later,” reads the media release.
Onion Skins & Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes will be directed by Autumn Smith, who performed in this year’s production of The Cavan Blazers. It will run Mondays to Saturdays from July 1 to 20 at the Winslow Farm.
Jim Watts: Girl Reporter is described as a fascinating exploration of the experience of trailblazing Canadian youth who illegally flocked to Spain in the mid-1930s to fight fascism, attempting to stop its march across Europe. The play focuses on journalist Jean ‘Jim’ Watts, the only woman to join the volunteer Mackenzie–Papineau Battalion, which began fighting in 1938 for the Republican side during the three-year Spanish Civil War that erupted after fascist Francisco Franco’s failed coup d’état in July 1936.
Taking the audience from Toronto to Madrid, from political rallies to the battlefields of Spain, the play also tells the story of Peterborough union organizer and hero Harry James “Jim” Higgins. While fighting in the Spanish Civil War, Higgins jumped into a river during a battle to save a wounded Spanish child. That child, Manual Alvarez, later moved to Canada and recorded his memories of his search for Higgins in the book The Tall Soldier.
Jim Watts: Girl Reporter is written by award-winning playwright Beverley Cooper, who previously wrote 2018’s The Other: A Strange Christmas Tale for 4th Line Theatre, and will be directed by Blackwell. It will run Mondays to Saturdays from July 30 to August 24 at the Winslow Farm.
The two new plays reflect 4th Line Theatre’s mandate to preserve and promote Canadian cultural heritage through the development and presentation of regionally based and environmentally staged historical dramas.
“Both of the plays focus on young people who are willing to do just about anything to do their part,” Blackwell notes. “These young people were desperate to try and make a difference in a world gone mad. They were all true heroes.”
4th Line Theatre’s box office opens for the 2024 season on Monday, November 6th, with gift certificates available for single tickets, season subscriptions, and charcuterie snack boxes. New this year, tickets for specific performance dates will also be available when the box office opens. Tickets can be purchased by phone at 705-932-4445 (toll-free at 1-800-814-0055), online at 4thlinetheatre.on.ca, or in person at 4th Line Theatre’s box office location at 9 Tupper Street in Millbrook.
